


The UNSUB on the Shelf

by wizened_cynic



Series: Dress Your Family in Kevlar and Armani [10]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Christmas, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Humor, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-02
Updated: 2012-12-02
Packaged: 2017-11-20 01:59:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/580046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wizened_cynic/pseuds/wizened_cynic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Back in Rossi's day, kids got coal in their Christmas stockings if they misbehaved. That was it.  None of this Elf on the Shelf business which, frankly, he found a little disturbing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The UNSUB on the Shelf

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2012 Advent Calendar for the Rossi/Prentiss LJ Comm.

Back in Rossi's day, kids got coal in their Christmas stockings if they misbehaved. That was it. None of this Elf on the Shelf business which, frankly, he found a little disturbing. 

It was Tess's idea. The day after Thanksgiving, she sat Beezus down at her living room table and placed a wrapped box in front of her while Rossi and Emily recovered from the meltdown that had occurred ten minutes earlier over the necessity of wearing tights. 

Beezus's eyes lit up with three-year-old gluttony, her earlier upset over appropriate clothing choices all forgotten. "For me?" 

"Yes, for you. Let me help you with it." 

Prompted by her mother, Beezus parroted a quick thank you and tore at the wrapping paper with unbridled glee. Rossi thanked the Lord quietly for Vinnie's signature stomach-rotting coffee because if this was a preview for Christmas, he was going to need a lot of it. Emily just shook her head and smiled at him, squeezing his fingers beneath the table. 

Finally, the box was opened and Tess held up a doll that wore a red body suit, a red cap, and an expression on its face so terrifying that both Rossi felt himself and Emily tensing up immediately. He had seen that look before. On _serial killers._

Beezus, on the other hand, was neither scared nor impressed. 

"Do you know who this is?" Tess asked, holding the doll so close to his daughter's face that it made Rossi uncomfortable. 

"Santa?" 

"Not quite. This is the Elf of the Shelf. He works for Santa and from now until Christmas, he's going to watch you every single day and tell Santa whether you've been a good girl or not." 

"Dude, so he's basically a snitch?" interjects Lucas, Bridget's youngest who had somehow stumbled into this conversation and was finding it wildly amusing. 

Tess glared at him.

"Maybe don't say 'watch'," Emily suggested. "'Watch' sounds a little creepy." 

"Fine," Tess said, turning back to the three-year-old who was now more interested in climbing onto her cousin for a piggyback ride. "Beatrice, do you understand what I said? The Elf on the Shelf is looking after you always." 

"Oh," Beezus said. "Like Jesus." 

Emily had the decency to hide her snicker behind a cough, but Rossi didn't bother. Neither did Lucas. The only people who managed to keep a straight face were Tess and Beezus. 

"Yes, like Jesus," Tess said. "Well, sort of." 

The elf came with a book which Emily skimmed through during their drive back to Washington. "I think this is a toddler's guide to becoming a stalker," she remarked to Dave and passed the book to him at a red light. 

He flipped through a few pages and made a startling discovery. "He doesn't have the magic until we name him. As long as we don't name him, he won't be able to stalk our three-year-old and rat her out to Santa."

"But then your sister will be so disappointed." 

"She really will."

Tess liked Emily more than Emily liked Tess, a confession Emily made shortly before Beatrice's baptism, which Tess had tried to hijack. "I'm sorry," Emily had said to Dave, "but your sister is a complete fucking nutjob." 

It was an entirely fair assessment in Rossi's point of view, and he didn't mind Emily saying it out loud. One of the privileges that came with marriage is that you are allowed to be as critical of your spouse's relatives as much as you want, because you trust your spouse to love you anyway and because you love your spouse enough to put up with these nutjobs in the first place.

Things would have been fine if Beezus had forgotten about it. But when they arrived home, Beezus waited patiently to be unbuckled from her car seat instead of thrashing around and screaming to be freed, asking, "Where's the Elf on the Shelf? I gotta tell him I'm being good." Which meant Rossi had to reassess whether his sister was a complete nutjob or simply an overbearing and misunderstood genius. 

That night, they sat the elf on top of the washing machine (because no way was Emily letting that doll in their room, and Beezus was still pretty crap about sleeping in her big girl bed down the hall, so chances were Rossi would be sharing a bed with _two_ covers-hoggers.) and Emily read Beezus the story of Santa's voyeuristic elf snitch, which would've been frightening enough to keep Rossi up all night if he hadn't had 30 years of practice in dealing with murderers and in-laws. 

"We have to give him a name!" Beezus realized. "Or he won't have magic!"

"Okay," Emily said. "What do you want to name him?" 

"How about Bob?" said Rossi, because he loved his daughter but he would really appreciate it if the kid would go to sleep and let him have a few minutes of grownup time with his wife. "Or John? Or Michael. Just pick one." 

"No," Beezus decided. "His name is UNSUB." 

There was a moment of dizzying silence before Rossi choked out, "UNSUB the Elf?" 

"Yeah. UNSUB looks after me always," Beezus said with an approving nod. "Just like Jesus." 

"Excuse me," Emily said, getting up from the bed. Rossi could hear her walking into the bathroom, closing the door, and starting to laugh. 

UNSUB the Elf lasted a whopping total of five days before it was accidentally knocked onto the ground and Mudgie made it his newest chew toy. Coincidentally, on the same day, Rossi found his daughter on the floor of the sun room, eating her way through the Advent calendar. She had made it all the way to Day 23 before he caught her. It was remarkable how quick and thorough a three-year-old was at getting chocolate over herself and every single surface around her. 

"I did a bad thing," she confessed but she was opening the last two windows even as she said this. "I'm sorry." 

"Let's talk about this later," Rossi said, taking the empty box from her. He was going to need a wet wipe for Beezus's face and a forensics team to process the crime scene. He wondered if a time-out was in order or if that would simply give his daughter the chance to come up with some other kind of mischief. 

"I love you, Daddy," Beezus said, gazing sorrowfully at him with those big, brown eyes she inherited from her mother, confirming Rossi's theory that toddlers are completely, unrepentantly evil. She held out a chocolate-stained hand. "Here, you have the last one."


End file.
